Epilogue 1
HE WILL DO THE DISHES. THIS IS BINDING.
MIKAELA
The mountain hums like a living thing.
Not in an “oh no, you’re having a psychotic break, congratulations” way, but with a background vibration, like a cat purring somewhere behind the walls.
It’s become the sound of a normal day.
If you had told me back on Earth that my definition of “normal” would eventually include eating alien lizards, murder springs, and a communal butchering schedule, I would have suggested you see a neurologist. And yet, here we are.
Normal looks like this.
In the main cavern, two fires are going full-tilt.
Over one corner, Haroth and another Drakav are working on a fresh kill.
Something big and six-legged with too many teeth and not enough brain cells.
They move like pro butchers, claws and knives flashing, thick ropes of muscle in their forearms shifting as they separate meat from bone.
By the other fire, three Drakav are arguing over the best way to skewer strips of meat so they cook evenly without falling into the firestones. Mindspace mutters crackle like background radio.
Near the drinking pool, Kol is overseeing the water rotation. Two males haul full skins from where the water is freshly filtered and boiled, moving them to the storage alcoves. Another group ferries empties back.
It’s loud. It’s busy. It’s…comfortable.
Another Drakav stomps past me carrying a basket of firebloom, his mental presence bristling with outrage.
“Who,” he demands of the universe at large, “forgot to remind Vorn to shield his mind? He projected his hunting dreams all dark. I could taste the sand-serpent blood.”
A ripple of laughter moves through the mindspace.
“At least he caught it this time,” someone points out dryly. “Last cycle, we had to feel him run until my legs cramped.”
I bite back a smile and pretend to be very focused on the gourd in my hand.
Because that’s my task at the moment: sitting cross-legged near one of the side fires on a pile of woven mats, husking gourds.
Across from me, Sarven is doing the same, huge hands ridiculously careful as he scores the tough skin with a claw and peels it back.
We got roped into this by Erika, who has apparently adopted the authority of a Drakav matriarch. She walked over, slapped two gourds and a carving knife down in front of us, and said, “If you have time to snoodle, you have time to work,” and wandered off before either of us could protest.
Sarven did not even attempt to protest. He just picked up a gourd and got to it like she’d handed him a sacred duty.
My big, scary mountain warrior, drafted into vegetable prep.
He looks up at me now, a stray string of fiber stuck to one of his knuckles, his eyes lit with quiet amusement.
“You are not cutting deep enough,” he sends, matching the thought with a little image of my gourd as a stubborn rock he’s about to crack in half with his bare hands.
“Gentle,” I mutter aloud. He flicks the fiber away and leans over, setting his palm over my hand on the bone knife.
“Like this,” he murmurs, guiding the blade through the gourd with more pressure.
“Show-off,” I send, projecting an image of him with a mountain on one shoulder and a tiny gourd on the other, flexing dramatically.
His answering thought is a picture of him standing up, scooping me onto his shoulder instead of the gourd, and walking straight out of the main cavern with me like a stolen snack.
I feel my lips twitch. I fight it and lose.
“Don’t you dare,” I hiss under my breath, stabbing at the fibrous strands.
Amusement ripples toward me. “I am only husking,” he sends back, but under the words is that image again, sharpened.
Desire curls low in my belly. I bump his knee with mine.
“Later,” I think at him, making my mental voice as stern as I can manage.
In my head, he shows me an exaggerated, soulful image of himself staring longingly at the cavern entrance like an abandoned beast.
I have to duck my head to hide my laughter.
This is what I mean by “normal” now.
The shared WiFi is kind of cool. Alright, it’s hella cool.
And with that comes the fact and the realization that I…am not baseline human anymore.
If I close my eyes, I can sense the rough outlines of major tunnels by the echoes of footfalls. If I inhale deeply, I can pinpoint which direction the freshest kill is being prepared.
Sometimes, when I’m very still, I can hear Xiraxis itself, deep and slow. Like a weather system.
None of that feels as strange as it should.
Haroth passes behind with a load of meat skewers, muttering in the mindspace.
“If I eat one more strip with firebloom dust, my insides will be hotter than the central hearth,” he projects for everyone to hear.
On the other side of the fire, another Drakav perks up.
“Good,” he sends, deadpan. “Come stand over here. The drying racks need more heat, and I am tired of feeding the fire.”
Haroth grumbles something deeply uncomplimentary but doesn’t quite hide his amusement.
I set my now-husked gourd aside, wipe my hands on the jagged hem of my skirt—what’s left of my actual Earth clothes after I sacrificed the rest to create a proper loincloth for Sarven’s modesty—and lean back on my palms, stretching my sore shoulders. Muscles pull and complain.
Sarven’s attention flickers over me immediately.
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.
“Later: furs. You will not move by yourself for a while after I am done.”
I swallow, my pulse doing a small, traitorous leap.
It’s ridiculous how easily he can fluster me now, when we’ve already done things that would make my past self’s brain melt out her ears. But this is different. I exhale on a half-laugh, half-sigh.
“All this,” I say aloud, mostly to distract myself, “and still no coffee. Tragic.”
The word hangs in the air like a foreign object.
Sarven’s head tilts.
“Koh-fee,” he repeats slowly in my mind, tasting the shape of it. “This is the bitter brown drink you and Ah-lex spoke of.”
“It’s—” My chest aches a little, unexpectedly. “It’s a thing from home. Earth. Hot, dark, bitter. It tastes like smoke and roasted earth, but it wakes your brain up before your body is ready to move.” I wave a hand. “Don’t worry about it. There’s no coffee here. I’ve accepted my fate.”
Sarven goes very, very still.
His gaze moves from my face to the fire, to the water skins, to the baskets of dried herbs stacked nearby as if the answer might be hiding among them.
“If this ‘koh-fee’ exists on Xiraxis,” he projects slowly, “I will find it. If I have to search every ridge and valley. If I have to trade every hunting tool I own.”
I stare at him, throat tight.
“…Sarven. It’s just coffee.”
His brows tighten. “No. Your voice changes when you speak of it. Your memories around it are…” His head cocks as he brushes lightly against that tangled knot of early-morning kitchens and cheap mugs and city air. “Soft. Important.”
He leans closer, lowering his mental volume so the thought is just for me.
“You gave up your whole world,” he thinks, quiet and fierce. “If there is a way to bring you one small piece of it, how could I not try?”
I blink rapidly.
Sarven, former Stabby mountain menace, is earnestly vowing to scour an alien planet for bean water.
I laugh because if I don’t, I’m going to cry. It comes out a little wobbly.
“Careful,” I tell him, nudging his ankle with my toes. “You keep talking like that, and I’m going to have to promote you from mate to husband, and then you’ll be stuck doing half the dishes forever.”
Sarven freezes. His hand stills on the gourd.
“Husband,” he repeats in the mindspace. The word feels heavy, strange. Huz-bahnd.
Before I can explain, I feel him reach out through the bond. He just…looks. He pulls the concept straight from my brain archives, rifling through years of rom-coms, my sister’s divorce, my friends’ weddings…
He sees the legal documents, which look like thin, dead leaves to him.
He sees the white dresses. He sees the arguments about leaving socks on the floor, the concept of sleeping in separate rooms, the fifty-percent failure rate, and the human men who stop hunting for their mate’s favor after the ceremony.
Sarven’s lips curl, revealing a fang.
“This bond is… dust,” he projects. “It is markings on dead fiber. It can be unmade by the words of a stranger in a long coverings?”
Long cov…oh, a priest’s robe?
“Well, it’s supposed to be forever,” I say. “But yeah, it’s complicated.”
“A ‘huz-bahnd’ is merely a nest-partner held by a rule, not need.”
He leans forward, his crimson eyes burning so hot the air around us crackles.
“I am not a huz-bahnd,” he practically growls. “I am Tor-vakh. I am the one who breathes your air. If you cease to love me, I do not tear up a marking. I wander the dust until Ain bleaches my bones.”
My breath stops in my throat. “Okay. Wow. That is… significantly more intense.”
“Also,” he adds, tapping the gourd with a claw, “I saw the memory of the ‘deeshes.’ Cleaning the eating tools?”
“Yeah,” I say out loud. “It’s a chore. Husbands usually complain about it.”
Sarven snorts.
“Why? Why would I let you scrape away rotten meat when I have larger claws and thicker skin?” He looks at me like I’ve suggested he let me fight a sand-serpent alone. “I will clean the tools. And remove the waste. And carry the heavy baskets.”
He radiates a smug sense of superiority over the entire male population of Earth.
“I am better than a huz-bahnd,” he finishes. “I am Sarven.”
I stare at him, feeling my heart do a traitorous, gooey melt in my chest. I lean forward and bump my forehead against his.
“Deal,” I say, both aloud and in his mind. “You’re definitely better.”